Afghanistan's fate has been linked to the world's worst conflicts. The country is still struggling to withstand the rage of war, exposing civilians, particularly women and children to daily deadly risks, prompting mass displacements and choking the country’s unstable economy. 14 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance among whom 5.1 million are children.
One third of Afghan population needs urgent humanitarian aid, millions suffer from acute food insecurity. According to a UN report, in October 2019 there were about 10.3 million people living in a state of "severe acute food insecurity".
The series of unending wars, conflicts have caused both massive internal and external displacement. More than 2,400 US troops have been killed during the conflict. About 12,000 are still stationed in the country.
Almost every Afghan bears the mark of war. Some in the form of physical injury which is approximately 4 million people while others mourn the loss of loved ones. Tranquillity has been robbed from the land and so are their right to protection, right to safety. Security is regularly threatened along with the international laws. Almost everyday refugees are forcefully sent back to Afghanistan from neighbouring countries which is an international rights violation
What caused the crisis in Afghanistan?
Afghans were destitute yet resilient people. The saga of crisis began in 1970's when the then government of Afghanistan in order to ensure prosperity and to continually grow their economy, while fostering and maintaining good relations with their neighbourhood for support during times of hardship made some decisions. This was a constructive approach until the late Soviet forces invaded and occupied Afghanistan for a decade. This was the start of displacement of Afghans.
In 1990's after the disintegration of the USSR, the forces left Afghanistan and left it without any state institutions. This was the time when the Taliban took over the vulnerable country. The oppressive foreign-installed regime of the Taliban victimized innocent Afghans on a daily basis, denying them, especially women and girls, access to their basic human rights, including education and healthcare. Taliban gave shelter to militants from the al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the dreadful 9/11, attacks in America that killed nearly 3,000 people in the US.
Taliban refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden, the head of Islamist terror group al-Qaeda, who was quickly identified as the man responsible. Hence, the US launched air strikes in Afghanistan in order to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime".
Within a few months after the US and its allies joined the war, Taliban's were vanquished. But they did not disappear. They kept carrying out suicide missions, drug trades etc. Since then for almost 19 years the US has been trying to keep the Taliban out of the country.
In 2004 a new US backed government took over Afghanistan. On 14th June 2011 US troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan. In October 2014, British forces handed over the last bases in Helmand to the Afghan military, officially ending their combat operations in the war. On 28 December 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations in Afghanistan and officially transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. But that gave momentum to the Taliban’s, providing opportunities for them to cease territories.
Recently a peace pact has been signed between the US and Taliban to withdraw all their troops from the country in 14 months if the hard-line Islamic movement upholds its commitments to stop attacks.
Present scenario and how worse the situations are in Afghanistan?
There are about 2.5 million refugees from Afghanistan. The country is the second largest source of refugees in the world. There are about 2.7 million Afghans in an Emergency situation, and 8.6 million in a Crisis situation. 10 million people are prone to acute food insecurity and need urgent humanitarian assistance. Generally, a country faces either an internal displacement crisis or an external displacement crisis but when it comes to Afghanistan the pattern is quite different from what we have seen in the past. Afghanistan is suffering from both internal and external mass displacements, refugee’s crisis and day by day the number of Afghani asylum seekers is increasing.
Violent conflicts, natural disasters continue to cause internal displacement. In 2018, around 275,000 people were internally displaced due to drought. Flash floods in March 2019, increased the humanitarian needs of 163,000 people and displaced over 42,000. The displacements caused due to climate and natural calamities is more than the displacements caused due to conflicts and internal instability.
Afghan refugees are forcefully returned by countries like Pakistan and Iran. Forced returns of refugees, is illegal under customary international law. Country’s infrastructure has collapsed. Schools, hospitals, government institutions have been under severe destruction due to the conflicts, international invasions and recent air strikes. Attacks on infrastructure has impacted the access to education and healthcare facilities as well as access to water supplies, food, and roads.
Humanitarian assistance provided to Afghanistan
Providing Humanitarian aid in Afghanistan is yet another challenging task as many Afghans reside in Taliban occupied regions with very little access to connectivity. Secondly, a huge number of Afghan refugees remain unregistered.
In the appeal for emergency relief published by the UN in 2018, Afghanistan’s need for humanitarian aid was estimated to amount to roughly EUR 370 million.
In 2018, Finland provided Afghanistan with humanitarian aid amounting to EUR 400,000. Finland also supports humanitarian mine action in Afghanistan, which is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
After 20 years of conflict, Afghanistan today continues to face a humanitarian crisis worsened by political instability and ongoing violence, while the focus of the international community lies elsewhere.
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